


One's Own Desire

by Plooby



Series: Over Hill and Under Hill [2]
Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-24
Updated: 2015-01-24
Packaged: 2018-03-08 21:42:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3224468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Plooby/pseuds/Plooby
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fine trappings of a king were illusion, and not even the comfort of these was meant for the king himself. All was only for the people, to rest their heads safe under a steady hand.</p>
            </blockquote>





	One's Own Desire

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Concerning Dwarven Law](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3210377) by [ladysisyphus](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladysisyphus/pseuds/ladysisyphus). 



The leanest and lowest times had been after the slaughter at Moria. His grandfather slain, his father lost, he had stepped to the fore without question or thought, leading those who were left to safer climes near the realms of Men. For long and hard days they had bivouacked in what caves they could clear at the mountains' edge, forced to scrape even for such simples as food and clothing. Able-bodied men among their number had dwindled to almost none, but there had also been women who could weave or stitch or sell other trades, who could leave their children by day under the eyes of elder sisters and great-grandmothers; and each dawn and night he had broken track for them all through the bitter midwinter snows, to and from Men's distant villages. They had found what work they could, and brought back what they could, with every coin they had earned. He had stared into the heart of the forge as he worked and seen the fires drowning Erebor, with such intensity they might have still burned around him, and the pale orc's filthy hand raising his grandfather's head. And he had slung his hammer as though its force alone could crush the visions, and scatter them like sparks.

They had been thin times, scarce times, settling for bushels of bruised potatoes and parcels of stringy meat just so that the coin would spread a little further, a little more space on the children's plates would fill. But his people had taken no charity, all the same - would have brooked none even if the plain folk around them had been fools enough to offer such an insult. There had been one day, only one, when Thorin had allowed himself or any other to take anything unearned: a basket of sweet rice pastries, given by the forgemaster's wife on a winter holiday when bright candles burned away in the village windows.

_Not for you men, but for the little ones,_ she had said, with no nonsense or sentiment - a stout, stern woman with chapped ruddy cheeks, who stood even higher above his head than many of the men in the town. _You have little ones among your kin, don't you?_

_Yes,_ he had said, after a long moment's pause, for the struggle she had no doubt predicted and steered alee of as best she could. The gratitude for that had perhaps stung worse in his pride than the gift. _They will... be most thankful._

She'd given a brusque nod and left the basket in his arms, and had not lingered to make him work to say more. It had already been more than he'd spoken to anyone in the village, on most of his days there.

He had kept nothing for himself, accepted nothing for himself, all the while. He had eaten only enough to fuel him through the day, given away whatever he could afford to. If he'd had one breath left in his body, it had been for his people, and no more. He had worked until he could scarcely stand and then carried the heaviest bushels back through snow to his hips, parceled out the tattered rugs and blankets and slept at night on stone, at least when the throbbing in his back and arms and shoulders allowed it. But he relished the pain; it was born from his strength, spoke of his strength, and how all was given up for those most in need. He would see it trebled before he would lay his burden down.

In time, those days had ended, as low times sometimes do. After some time of correspondence and arrangements made, in their father's stead he had given Dis in marriage to the well-off mining overseer of a modest settlement, far off in distant hills. He had misliked the idea, but she had insisted, also for the sake of their people.

_'Tis not only menfolk who can show courage for their kind,_ he could still remember her saying, drawn up in her shabby robes with the prideful tilt of her dark head so like his own; _as I would think you would know well by now, brother,_ and of course the truth of it was he _had_ known, and always had done. In the end, of course, he had relented, and how could he not have? What sense in insisting on the prince's hand and royal wedding in the halls of Erebor that she so well deserved, when he had neither to offer her? His sister's dowry had been coin enough at last for more than the next day's meal, in any case: enough to supply them for their journey west to Ered Luin, and to settle them there to begin anew. When the ground beneath began to steady and they to prosper once more, he would find what time he could spare to set Balin in his place and travel to see his nephews, at least every few decades here and there. They were fine boys, a well of pride in the chambers of his heart, and he taught them first to hunt and told them tales of vast gilded halls, and the sunrise on distant peaks they had never known.

Dis had known what he had known, deep and fast: that nothing was for them. Royal son and daughter, the riches of the kingdom were only meant to pass through their hands, never there to stay. The fine trappings of a king were illusion, and not even the comfort of these was meant for the king himself. All was only for the people, to rest their heads safe under a steady hand. There was no room for want, for one's own desire. He had seen, and marked well, the cost of his grandfather's sickness, the ignominy of a king's selfishness and lust; how it came to bear heaviest on the meekest and the meanest, those who could least survive its weight. He had vowed to himself never to forget it, never to betray himself in temptation. He would strike off his hands before they went grasping for his own sake.

And so it rankled hardest, hardest of all deep in the scarred flesh of his pride, to find his eyes turning to follow the hobbit as he made his way through camp, laughing and talking with the company with an ease he once could scarcely have imagined. To find the unwilling warmth flooding his eyes and smile when they spoke, Bilbo asking a thoughtful question or offering a bracing word. To find himself thinking of the hobbit's humble and ironic smile, and how well he would like to see it fade into a startled parting of his soft, comely lips, under the brush of a calloused thumb. To lie at night open-eyed and gripped with a fever of long thoughts, dwelling on a small and fragile body, a tumble of curls burying his own heavy hands.

A burglar he was indeed; and a thiever of promises first of all else.

**Author's Note:**

> Parts of this were inspired by evankart's gorgeous [Snow Day comic](http://evankart.tumblr.com/post/70398723195).


End file.
